Anyone had thigh numbness in pregnancy and did it improve?

[whysohardtogetusername]

I'm 21 weeks pregnant and top of my right thigh goes numb when I walk/stand for more than ten minutes over the last two weeks. It started after sitting in a bad chair at a cafe for 2.5 hours and having hip pain. I've been to accupuncturist, physio, pregnancy massage but nothing has fixed it. Physio thinks its compression of the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve (meralgia paresthetica) and has given me exercises and I'll go back in 2-3 weeks.

But my main issue is I'm very active and walk everywhere - I'm afraid this is going to make me much less active for the rest of the pregnancy OR I'll permanently damage the nerve.

Has anyone else had this and can you reassure me it fixed itself? Ideally during pregnancy!!

Pre-pregnancy I was doing pilates, strength training, lots of walking, which I've managed to keep up give or take a few weeks off. I wanted to have a healthy pregnancy and this is all now going to be a lot harder to manage and I'm feeling pretty down/depressed about it. I only just got out of morning sickness and I was finally feeling good again!

Yes! I had meralgia parasthetica when I was pregnant, onset at a similar stage to yours. I remember how surprisingly horrible and debilitating it was so sending you all good wishes.

The good news is mine had pretty much completely gone by about 30 weeks. I did the physio exercises and tried to stay active as much as I could (mostly by cycling and swimming as they don’t involve weight bearing so gave me no pain at all). The physio department at my hospital also offered some nice hydrotherapy classes (basically doing exercises in a pool). Once it had resolved I did loads of walking again (including marching up and down stairs to get things going when I was overdue) and it never came back.

I know of at least one other woman whose MP resolved in the third trimester too. I think eventually the nerve just untraps itself. Also did someone actually tell you that you could permanently damage it? Was never mentioned to me, so I don’t know if that’s something you genuinely need to worry about.

Anyway best of luck with your pregnancy, really hope it goes away soon.

Oh thank you so much for commenting! I am feeling a bit down so this means a lot and is so reassuring to hear. I've been thinking the same things re: cycling and swimming/water - trying to see what I can still do. I'll ask about hydrotheraphy classes too, those sound great.

I think my fear re: permanent damage is just because I know people who've had other nerve damage that hasn't gone away, no one has said that to me. Did you keep doing walking when it kicked in or hold off for a while before it fixed itself?

I’m so glad that helped ❤️ I was similarly determined to have an active and healthy pregnancy so I know where you’re coming from. I was particularly sad as the type of yoga I practise involves a lot of standing still and holding the poses, and I just couldn’t hack it.

I think with the walking I tried to just do a very little bit every day to see what my tolerance was like, and I noticed gradually over the weeks I could walk a little bit longer each time. I wasn’t pushing myself to walk once it was too painful though or anything.